Linux computer geeks please

[nev]

Hi, I have a WD passport portable HDD.

I would like to password protect it as it will be sent by post at times due to lousy broadband speeds (less than 1meg).

All my pc's use Linux. so i cannot use the embedded software to secure the hdd. (not compatible!) and does not run under Wine :x

my colleague (the recipient/ sender) uses win7 .

I also wish to continue using the HDD as an media store when connected to my TV.
when connected to the TV there is a basic file browser that allows me to play music/ video and photo files.

question: does anyone know of any software/ method of passwording the drive or folders thereon, that I can then turn off with my pc , therefore enabling me to plug the hdd back into the tv without a password?

so in short...
save file to hdd - set password - post- receive- connect to pc- 'switch off' password requirement - connect to tv. simples.

Is this possible?

 

[Elapid]

Put a Truecrypt partition on the drive. Then just unlock it and move the files outside of the truecrypt folder.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

 

[Eric The Viking]

PGP also does disk encryption and is free and is an open standard. There are binaries and source here:
http://www.gnupg.org/download/index.en.html
including most flavours of Linux.

By some oddity I run 8.1 from PGP corp. It says 'unregistered' but doesn't seem disabled in any way, although I can't find the same binary on the Web any more - it dates back to around 2002! It integrates completely with my email package and I've never had issues using it, although I've never encrypted a whole disk with it.

Hope that helps,

E.

 

[bugbear]

question: does anyone know of any software/ method of passwording the drive or folders thereon, that I can then turn off with my pc , therefore enabling me to plug the hdd back into the tv without a password?

Since password protection involves encrypting the data (otherwise the password is meaningless), you can't just "turn it off" - you have to decrypt everything, which in the case of "media data" may take a while.

BugBear

 

[nev]

question: does anyone know of any software/ method of passwording the drive or folders thereon, that I can then turn off with my pc , therefore enabling me to plug the hdd back into the tv without a password?

Since password protection involves encrypting the data (otherwise the password is meaningless), you can't just "turn it off" - you have to decrypt everything, which in the case of "media data" may take a while.

BugBear

Thats what I thought, but was hoping I was wrong

I shall have a look into truecrypt and gpg. thanks for the suggestions .